The Screwtape Letters
by C.S. Lewis has been on my want-to-read list for years. The fact that my teen
boys were reading it this week for their English class made it the perfect time
for me to finally cross it off my to-do list. Written in 1941, it is a
fictional portrayal of a devil (Screwtape) guiding his nephew (Wormwood) through
the process of tempting and drawing a soul to eternal damnation. The book offers much food for thought, but there were a
couple of points that really spoke to me and my current position in life.
In Letter XXI, Screwtape talks about how humans get
irritable when their plans for their time are impinged upon. “They anger him
because he regards his time as his own and feels it is being stolen.” Screwtape
points out what a fallacy this is: “The man can neither make, nor retain, one
moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the
sun and moon as his chattels.” He goes on to explain that we frequently suffer
from this sense of ownership, whether it be of our bodies, other people, or
material objects. Sometimes we even think of God as “my God.”
How true this is and how much we (I) need that reminder.
None of us is here of our own free will. None of us can take a breath without
God allowing it. The time I have this day has been given to me from God and
while I have a responsibility to use it well as much as I am able, who am I to
object when he has different plans for my day? By the same token, all we have,
including our family members, friends, pets, jobs, houses and all the stuff in
them also rightfully belong to God. We are temporary caretakers, stewards of
the earth, with a role to play in bringing about the kingdom of God. In the
midst of the busyness of life, we should strive to never lose sight of the One
who is truly in charge.
In Letter XXVI, Screwtape talks about unselfishness and how
men and women view this topic differently. I can’t even begin to tell you how
many times in my life I have wondered why men are so selfish. Can’t they see
all that needs to get done? I’ve pondered whether it is some genetic marker on
the Y chromosome or a societal construct or if the men I’ve encountered are
simply personally deficient in that regard (I’ve heard rumors that there are
men out there that do not fit this mold). This is the first time I’ve ever
heard it explained like this: “A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking
trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others. . . .Thus while
the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people’s
rights, each sex, without any obvious reason, can and does regard the other as
radically selfish.”
So, this is simply one more instance of the sexes not
understanding each other. That makes sense. The longer I live, especially
having had the benefit of raising male children, I realize more and more how
different men and women truly are. In a perfect world, that complementarity
would create a perfect union. However, we live in an imperfect, sinful world
where misunderstandings and wounded feelings seem much more likely to be the
order of the day. This insight from a male writer helps me to understand that
this behavior on the part of men is not personal, which somehow makes it a bit
easier to take.
In fact, the idea that men also consider us women selfish is
quite an eye opener. While I don’t plan to stop doing for others anytime soon,
it is a reminder that not everyone sees the world the way I do and that it is
important to give others the benefit of the doubt, instead of thinking the
worst of them.
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